Thursday, August 13, 2009

Playing forester again!

I have a degree in Forestry, which I get to put to use occasionally. And this week was just such an occasion: I was assigned to check our trails for hazard trees.

Hazard trees are not exactly a Homeland Security issue. It's a matter of evaluating potential risk: which trees along the trail are likely to fall in a windstorm, and would they cause much damage? It's one thing if they only block the trail until we can send out a guy (or gal -- we do have a few on our trail crew) with a chainsaw. But the most serious case would be if a tree falls on an innocent person sitting on a bench or picnic table...

So I got to do the first round of evaluating hazard trees. Once again, I'm lucky to be paid to spend hours hiking the beautiful Alaskan Outdoors -- can't beat that. And this time, I took my family along: the prof was the photographer, the son was in charge of GPS, and Youngest helped take notes and take samples. We made a great team!

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About the crazy Kraut who writes this blog:

I call Alaska home, but am originally from Germany. I'm incredibly lucky to have a job as a naturalist, teaching and hiking the great outdoors. My family:
The Prof (my husband);
Eldest (flown the coop);
Wolfman (teenage son);
Liesl (youngest pixie).